SUEZ CANAL – For marine scientists, the stinging jellyfish that have colonized Mediterranean shorelines, ushering bathers from tepid vacation waters and clogging cooling plants in Israel, are more than a passing nuisance. Their arrival, sometimes in swarms up to 110 miles long, sounds an alarm.

The nomad jellyfish – Rhopilema nomadica – are the frontrunners in a wave of invasive species being slowly pumped from the Red Sea through the Suez Canal, depleting native Mediterranean populations, throwing the ecosystem out of balance, and putting fisheries, tourism, and public health at risk. And as Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi inaugurates a controversial $8 billion expansion to the canal, promising to add more than 20 miles of new waterways, the scientific community is scrambling to stop them.

Since its construction in 1869, the Suez Canal has become the salt-water super highway of the Middle East, generating $5.5 billion for the Egyptian government in 2014 and facilitating trade between Europe and Asia. The government claims that the upcoming expansion will contribute an additional $13 billion a year to public coffers by 2023, but marine biologists, including Dr. Bella Galil from Israel’s Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute in Haifa, warn that the environmental and consequent economic costs may be too high.

“Each time that the canal is enlarged, we get a new cohort of invaders,” said Galil. “Biodiversity is a complex web of relationships and in the Mediterranean, this web has been unraveled to a great degree.”

Together with 500 scientists from 40 countries, Galil is spearheading an international campaign to raise public awareness of the impact of invasive species entering the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal. In addition, the group is calling on Egyptian authorities to release an environmental impact assessment of the proposed expansion of marine biota and habitats in the Mediterranean, as required by international and regional agreements.

The canal once included a series of hypersaline pools, known as the Bitter Lakes, to block the migration of species between the two bodies of water. These barriers were removed during repeated expansions to the canal, and no additional measures ­to prevent species migration – such as the locks used on the Panama Canal – were implemented. Today, the Suez Canal Authority boasts the waterway as the longest, free-flowing canal in the world.

“The Suez Canal has been endangering the Mediterranean for almost 150 years,” Dr. Ilaria Vielmini, a marine biologist with Oceana, an international NGO, said in a statement earlier this month. “And although naivety can excuse its previous environmental impacts, we don’t have that excuse this time around.”

To date, 443 non-native species have successfully completed the passage between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, accounting for two-third of all non-native species in the northern body of water.

While not all migrating species are problematic, those labeled as invasive, such as the jellyfish, have outcompeted native species and wiped out the plankton that would populate the next generation.

“This is one of those cases where protecting the environment can also protect our economy,” said Dr. Piero Genovesi, the chair of the Invasive Species Specialist Group at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. His group estimates that invasive species cause losses to the European coastal economies to the tune of 12.5 billion Euros per year.

And the fact that it the waters of the Mediterranean is warming has only served to further facilitate the spread of invasive species. The poisonous silver-cheeked toadfish, a native of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, has been caught along the coast of Malta, while tropical rabbitfish, known to deplete algae forest for native species, have devastated large portions of the Mediterranean sea floor.

“Combine the fact that these species come from tropical waters with the warming waters in the north, and you see the expansion of these species throughout all of the Mediterranean, even the most northern part into Italy and France,“ Genovesi added.

While the imminent expansion of the Suez Canal has the scientific community in Europe scrambling to find solutions, the problem highlights the inherent limitations to coordinating large-scale efforts between the sovereign countries that share the Mediterranean coastline.

Some fingers point to the International Maritime Organization, the United Nations agency tasked with setting international shipping standards. For now, the organization says that it is pushing the adoption of a ballast water convention among its member states as a “direct, large-scale action” that they say would improve the sustainability of shipping while reducing its impact on marine ecosystems. But for others, the real potential for change lies at the point of entry, in the hands of canal authorities.

“The responsibility for action lies with Egypt,” said Trine Christiansen, who leads the Marine Environment Group for the European Environmental Agency (EEA), an agency of the European Union. The EEA has been tasked with compiling information to inform policy, but lacks regulatory power in the matter.

“The species that move through the Suez Canal have an impact everywhere, but the action must be taken by one country,” she added.

The Egyptian embassy in Washington D.C. did not respond to a request for comment.

William came to Brazil on a visa during the World Cup. Escaping tribal violence and terrorist attacks in his native Nigeria, he took advantage of lax visa requirements during the mega-event to come to Brazil as a tourist and stay as a refugee. He will go back, he says, once he has spoken with his mother – who disappeared after an inner-village conflict – and has enough money to relocate her to a safer place.

It has already been deemed the most painful loss in 100 years of Brazilian soccer. The national team’s 7-1 loss to Germany marks the worst loss a hosting team has ever suffered in the World Cup and the worst that the Brazil national team has ever lost in the World Cup game, period. What’s more, the first five goals were scored in record-setting time – it took Germany only 29 minutes.

For Brazilians, the World Cup, the ‘Cup of Cups,’ may go down in the history books as a $11-billion national tragedy.

This morning, the fireworks and horns began to sound around 10am. All day, the empty streets were filled with people drinking, dancing, cheering. By 4pm, one hour before the game, the Fan Fest in the center of São Paulo had closed, full to the brim with fans – torçidos – in face paint, yellow, green, and blue wigs, and with Brazilian flags falling as capes down their backs.

After the teams were introduced, fans belted the national anthem and prepared for battle.

When Müller scored Germany’s first goal in the 11th minute, the crowd groaned. But Brazil was on its feet, looking fresh. The fans were optimistic, and even without Neymar Jr. on the field, hopes were high.

Just outside of the Fan Fest, at a crowded bar on Anhangabaú, a drunk woman wearing a Brazil wig cheered and danced. “I am Brazilian, I am proud to be Brazilian!” she yelled. Patrons eyed her, laughed, but kept their gaze on the game.

Fans gather outside the FIFA Fan Fest to watch the game on a small television at a ‘lanchonete.’

When the second goal came in the 23rd minute, nerves started to wear thin. One man took off his hat, stood up, and walked out of the bar shaking his head. The crowd went silent. The fans hardly had time to recover from the second goal before Kroos netted Germany’s third.

It already seemed like a bad joke. The horns were silent, and fans looked on in disbelief as the fourth and fifth goals floated past Júlio César, the beloved Brazilian goalie who seemed invincible only days before.

“There are going to be riots in São Paulo,” said Rafael, a fan watching the game from an Anhangabaú bar, looking defeated. “It is going to be chaos if Brazil can’t come out of this … and 5 – 0, I don’t see how they will.”

By the second half, many fans had already gone home. A historic loss like this, on their own soil, was too much to stomach. And with 45 minutes left to play, it was likely that things were going to get worse before it was all over.

When the sixth and seventh goals were scored, fans actually started clapping and cheering in a mixture of desperation and disbelief. “Dillma!” a man on the patio yelled. “Vote for Dilma!” The manager at the bar started up the music and Brazilians, with no other road forward, stood up and began to dance. Across Anhangabaú, the bars struck up their music while the Brazilian national team wearily ran across the screen behind them. When Oscar scored Brazil’s only goal at the 90th minute, fans cheered as they danced.

Brazilian fans break into a samba as vice captain David Luiz gives a teary post-game interview in the background.“At least its not zero!” they yelled.

“At least its not zero!” they yelled.

When the game ended, hardly anyone could watch. There was no energy for riots. Some Brazilians danced, a group of Argentinians gathered in the plaza corner to sing. David Luiz, the vice-captain who had been fundamental in Brazil’s victory over Colombia, wept in his post-game interview. “We just wanted to give you great joy,” he said. “We apologize to the Brazilian people worldwide and to Brazil.”

Fans slowly moved towards the subway station. Their face paint had lost luster and their wigs and hats lacked spark. As the wait staff cleaned up the table, Brazilians with large sacks came through to collect beer cans and snatch up extra food.

“The Workers Party is out, Dilma has got to be out” said Docineia, a middle-aged Brazilian woman shaking her head in disbelief. “Sometimes God gives a little help.”

Tour led by the Rio Popular Committee on the Olympics and the World Cup, with the explicit goal of putting journalists in contact with those adversely affected by these mega-events. Learn more here: http://rio.portalpopulardacopa.org.br/

With a scant 28 days left before the World Cup, the streets of Brazil have been filled with burning barricades, armored military vehicles, and thousands of indignant citizens demanding that their voices be heard.

In São Paulo, an estimated 1,200 protesters gathered Thursday evening on Paulista Avenue as part of the International Day of World Cup Resistance — a series of demonstrations coordinated across the country to express public discontent ahead of the mega athletic event.

As the procession began, a giant skeleton wearing a Brazilian jersey danced among the crowd while protesters performed theatrical skits, played music, and erected banners.

At the end of the street, a projector beamed government-spending statistics (“Only 0.4 percent of the resources going to the World Cup is private investment”) onto the façade of a large building. The march, organized by the Popular Committee for the World Cup, appeared to be one of the most creative, orderly expressions of resistance yet.

“We have rights and we want them to be guaranteed,” Juliana Machado, a member of the Popular Committee for the World Cup, told VICE News as the protesters prepared to march. “We’re here not only to defend these rights, but to reclaim the rights that we’ve lost in the run-up to the World Cup.”

But less than a half an hour into the demonstration, events quickly shifted. A confusing and uneasy stir moved through the crowd. Protesters along Consolação Avenue started yelling insults at police officers, who walked together behind shields alongside storefronts on the periphery of the procession.

Before anyone could really understand what was going on, a loud explosion rang out. The police had fired a stun grenade. This was followed by screams, more explosions, and the rapid descent of a police helicopter, which blew up dust and beamed a spotlight onto demonstrators as they quickly dispersed into side streets.

Video footage illustrates the moment of tension, but it remains unclear what action on the part of protesters, if any, had prompted the police to detonate stun grenades.

Reports offer diverging accounts of what transpired shortly before the upheaval. Some accuse protestors of provoking the police, throwing rocks and other pieces of trash towards the huddled group of officers. Others insist that the grenades were an unjustified and disproportionate response to little more than heated verbal exchanges between protesters and the police.

As protesters scattered and businesses pulled down metal screens over their storefronts, black bloc members took advantage of the chaos and began smashing bank windows. They also vandalized a Hyundai dealership — the car manufacturer is an official World Cup sponsor — before setting trash aflame in the street.

In the end, eight people were detained by the military police and at least four people, two of them journalists, were reported injured.

The day included several protests by teachers, metalworkers, and metro employees elsewhere in São Paulo. The city’s transport department later said that demonstrations had resulted in traffic jams stretching more than 90 miles.

“We have to use the World Cup to apply more pressure,” Vitor Ribeiro, a leader of the metro workers’ union, remarked to VICE News ahead of Thursday’s rallies. “The metro is going to be the only way for tourists to get to the Itaquerão stadium, and a strike would do a lot of damage. They know this, and so do we.”

Earlier in the day, an estimated 5,000 members of the Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST) protested the government’s failure to address their housing demands by marching to the Itaquerão stadium, where they set fire to car tires. For the past two weeks, more than 4,000 families have occupied an encampment called the People’s Cup in an empty tract of land near the stadium.

“The clock is ticking: they have 28 days to resolve not only the People’s Cup but all the occupations that are part of this fight,” MTST leader Guilherme Boulos said in a press statement. “If this isn’t resolved, there will be problems.”

In Recife, in the northern state of Pernambuco, protests prompted the government to deploy the military to control looting in the absence of the local police force, which is on strike. It marked the second time that the Brazilian government has sent soldiers to patrol a World Cup host city in the last two months.

As burning trash was cleared from São Paulo’s streets, organizers of the International Day of World Cup Resistance were already busy planning their next move. News of a mass demonstration planned for May 31 quickly began circulating on social media.

When Machado, the protest organizer, was asked what message she and her compatriots were trying to convey, she answered, “We’re going to see fighting in this World Cup. It’s simple — that’s it.”

RIO DE JANEIRO – A recent report released by the Institute for Public Security (ISP) revealed that levels of violence in Rio de Janeiro are similar to those reported in 2008, a year considered to be one of the most violent of recent years for the Brazilian city.

Photo by Alex, Creative Commons Flikr

In the first three months of 2014, 1,459 people were killed in Rio de Janeiro. Thefts from restaurants and commercial outlets increased by 85 percent compared with last year, while the number of robberies on pedestrians went up by 45 percent.

The news came scarcely a month ahead of the World Cup, which is expected to bring 600,000 foreign tourists to Brazil. Rio de Janeiro, one of the 12 cities that will host World Cup events, swiftly responded by pulling more than 2,000 members of the state military police out of vacation and onto the streets in an effort to quell the recent surge in violence.

It was not a novel response by the Rio de Janeiro government, whose police force has been engaged in a daunting territory dispute against heavily-armed gangs across the city for more than two decades. In a recent statement, the state governor called the engagement a “war,” restating his intention to persevere.

“When crime spikes, the government dispatches police onto the street in order to achieve the quick, short-term effect of lowering crime rates,” said Sandro Costa, the vice-coordinator of human security at Viva Rio, an NGO monitoring violence in Rio de Janeiro.

In recent years, the government has taken additional measures – including the introduction of homicide units and special task forces – to reduce crime rates. The most notable of these measures has been the Police Pacification Units, introduced by the state governor in 2008 in response to a particularly severe crime wave.

The pilot program promised to regain control of the gang-controlled facelas by placing permanent police units in the most dangerous parts of the city. By the end of 2013, the number of operating UPPs in Rio de Janeiro had grown to 37 and by the end of 2014, the state intends to add three more. Yet in light of the recent spike in crime, many questions remain as to whether police-based responses in Rio de Janeiro are achieving the desired outcomes.

“The deployment of 2,000 additional troops to the streets is a purely political response meant to appease the middle class,” said Edson Diniz, founder of the Redes da Maré, an organization that promotes the development of favela communities. “If they behave anything like the police officers currently on the job, it will only make things worse.”

In the face of human rights abuses, corruption allegations, and high levels of impunity, one of the police’s main challenges will be salvaging their legitimacy in the eyes of community members. The report published by the ISP not only revealed an increase in crime, but also showed an increase in the number of deaths resulting from police actions, which increased from a total of 67 cases in February and March of 2013 to 104 deaths during the same period in 2014 — a 55 percent increase.

Yet many question the intention of policies that have placed police officers as protagonists on the road to public security. At a recent community event in the Maré, a massive complex comprised of several favelas and informal communities housing more than 130,000 residents, Luiz Eduardo Soares, the former secretary of national security under President Lula da Silva, criticized the role of police officers in Rio’s marginalized communities. “Occupation by the military police represents the defeat of a state that was unable to resolve its security problems, he said. “They were left with no choice but to resort to a quick fix that is both artificial and provisionary.”

His sentiments echoed those of Jorge Luiz de Souza, 43, a lifetime resident of the Maré. “Things won’t get better with more police,” said de Souza. “Because violence isn’t our only problem. And police can’t change the fact that we have the worst teachers and the worst doctors in the city.”

More than 4,000 families have occupied abandoned property near the Itaquera stadium, protesting what the Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST) estimates to be a housing deficit of six-million residences in São Paulo alone.

the pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland and the home of the world’s largest jaguars. in the last five years, an interesting story is unfolding, one that pits ranchers as the protagonists in an effort to conserve the habitat of jaguars, animals that were once their biggest enemies.

It has been nearly a month since Mamadou left Dakar, Senegal with the goal of reaching Brazil. He arrived 10 days ago to the teeming refugee camp in Brasiléia. Here, he holds his prayer beads after an afternoon meal.

Sonia from the Dominican Republic and her daughter, Nana, are on their way to Mato Grosso do Sul. Her husband and Nana’s father, a Haitian man, has been working in construction there for the past two years. He has finally earned enough money to pay their way, but for the past week they have been stuck in Brasiléia waiting for documents.

Hundreds of migrants from Senegal and Haiti gathered around the governor of Acre, Tião Viana, who travelled to the town of Brasiléia this past Saturday to announce the closing of a refugee camp that first opened in response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.